Sunday, April 24, 2011

Easter in Tampico: Resurrection of Narcoviolence

The “narco” violence that has swept the states of Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon this “Semana Santa”, or Holy Week, continues unabated with the neighboring municipalities of Tampico, Ciudad Madero and Altamira in southern Tamaulipas suffering heavy fighting as rival bands of gunmen fought each other and the authorities in the pre-dawn hours of this Easter Sunday.

The cycle of attacks and reprisals began the morning of Holy Thursday with a violent Zeta incursion into the Gulf cartel stronghold of Ciudad Aleman.

According to military sources quoted by the El Norte daily newspaper in a story published Saturday, the outbreak of violence in the Nuevo Leon municipalities of Monterrey, Cadereyta, Guadalupe, Santiago and Montemorelos were the result of Gulf cartel reprisals against areas with heavy Zeta influence.

What is alarming in this latest wave of attacks is the violence aimed at random economic targets such as auto dealerships, supermarkets, convenience stores, gas stations, fast food outlets and other business establishments.

In Tampico, shootouts began at 3:00am Sunday morning in different areas of the city.

Four auto dealerships located on Tampico’s main business artery, Avenida Hidalgo, were damaged. These included GMC-Buick, Chrysler, Mitsubishi and Dodge brands.

Heavy gunfire was also reported in the Del Valle, Del Bosque and Solidaridad neighbourhoods.

In the adjoining municipality of Ciudad Madero a grenade attack at a Soriana shopping center in the Colonia Ampliación resulted in a fire that heavily damaged the establishment.

The Tamaulipas State Attorney General has not confirmed any casaualties or arrests. However, unofficial reports vary wildly, from that of only four youths shot and wounded outside of a convenience store to a tally of ten deaths.

Various sources report the attacks as another “calentada de plaza” (disrupting the plaza), this time with Zetas from the neighboring state of Vera Cruz invading the Gulf cartel strongholds of Tampico/Ciudad Madero.

The Tamaulipas Ministry of Tourism counted 117,000 visitors to the Playas Miramar and Caracol gulf coast beaches located in the Tampico area during the Holy Week vacation period. Apparantly, federal authorities were occupied in protecting the tourist areas, holy week festivities and the Tampico "feria".

Although the Tampico area has been the site of ongoing narcoviolence for more than a year, the writer speaks of the current state of affairs as a “state of seige” with roving gangs of gunmen that no longer obey any limits to their behavior.

“There is no reason to present a Catholic “passion play”, we are living it daily in all it’s bloody reality.”

According to a joint report released by the National Defense and Naval ministries and quoted in the La Cronica de Hoy’s Sunday edition, drug cartels control 40% of the land area in Tamaulipas.

Although Federal authorities have a presence and mount operations in Tampico, Ciudad Madero and Altamira, the Gulf cartel controls the tri-city area.

17 comments:

The recent article "Mexicos Drug Money Addiction" sums it up when Mexico finally figures out that the harm to everybody and everything is greater than the precived benefit of drug money and criminal control, THEN maby THEN the people and politicians will be forced to clean up, and maby Mexico will become a decent place in the world.

Damn those Zetas always make a mess when they roll through town, dont they? What a bunch of fucking animals. Who in their right mind would join a group like this? Pure freaking evil. Hell awaits them all.

Seems lately they are getting even more blood thirsty, mindless and viscous, if that were even possible. God help anybody who has to live in areas under their control.

I would be absolutely outraged at the destruction of property and businesses that this cartel gang violence has caused. When businesses and livelihoods have been destroyed, and there is no way to make money for either the owner or worker, Mexico's legitimate economy will collapse. Those who can will escape 'abroad' somewhere to start over. Those who remain will suffer at the mercy of what is left--roving gangs killing each other and anyone in their path while chasing after profits of illegal and criminal origin.

What, then, will those poor people do who cannot eek out a living now in Mexico. Will they all be at the mercy of the gangs of criminals to be used as cannon fodder in the criminal war games?

What will become of a country in such a condition? While Mexico spends its time with its head stuck in the sand in denial, or trying not to rock the boat--clinging to humanitarian pleas while its citizens and businesses are slaughtered--the situations just get progressively worse.

These terrorists are trying to slaughter your country and they DON'T CARE as long as they can eek out every last dime possible until the economy or government collapses. And they DON'T CARE how many people they slaughter or displace while they destroy you. Is this not plain.

It doesn't matter that they are your Mexican brothers in blood, they are your enemies, and they seek to destroy you.

I would like to know how many of these cartel members identify themselves as "Mexican", and how many choose to identify themselves as "Azteca", or "Mayan" or whatever. The MEXICAN people that I know aren't at all like the people who let you know that they are Azteca.

I look at this sort of headline, and all I can think of is the Azteca death worship culture.

"@Gerardo, did you mean April instead of March?"Yes Friday April 22nd not March, sorry long day.

"pictures 4,6 and 7 are nott related to the violence that took place yesterday at Ciudad Madero, those executions took place last year in the near city of Tampico."

I removed 4 and 6, 7 however has the image being taken at 9:40am 4/24/11 on a canon eos under properties.

Except for the first and last image all the others were taken off twitter, none had properties so it was an educated guess on the accuracy, about 6 others attributed to the incident on twitter were not posted since they were obviously incorrect.

thank you so much, i've reading your site since day one i guess, such a great job i must say. I tought picture seven was from months ago, oh my! i live here and the car on fire wasnt on the news. thanks

Well, I live in Tampico and I was in a pub minutes before all this happen (And I was out ONLY because was holly week because I haven´t go out since months and I usually only go out to work and come back home). It was like 3:30 when we went out of the establishment when suddenly we could hear tires really hard and one truck almost hit us when it was in persecution (And you can tell when you past by those guys, everyone knows, the army, the police but the fear is to big to point them out and also is worthless because basically they rule over here :S), I don't know it was one of the shooters or one of the "locals" but quickly the people start reporting shootouts in all the city, they were waking by the guns and grenada feeling really afraid! Thank God we avoid them since we read the tweets with the ubication of the shootings!

In easter morning we go out to work still with fear and only to see the devastation of this souless animals.

What I can say is that the fear is in the streets, the bussiness are closing, the people dont go out anymore because this guys are terrorizing the city, It's like if they were playing with us, they gave us a few days of tranquility and when we finally think that everything is calm, bam, another shootout and more death and destruction :(

The sadest part is that aparently no one can help us, we live now in a rutine, there's no surprise when we hear "oh, yesterday they kill another 3 guys and cut their head off" or "they hang another person under the bridge" or this shootout that happened the sunday morning, is a typical day in our city, our city that appears to be forgotten by the federal authorities or maybe is just that they can't do anything about it, these guys rule now the city, they laugh at the faces of the authority and do wherever they want as long as they want!

I am so afraid that even I wont put my real name in a blog even one that is not even in my own language! I close my blog after one comment that says "You all are gonna die if we want", not even here can feel safe. Really everything makes me feel unprotected... We are scare but no body really seems to care, there's no real help coming :(

When a cartel member is caught in the act,like those who were holding the bus hostages they should be tortured to reveal what they know and be shot on the spot.They do not deserve a trial as they will be released by a corrupt cop or judge anyway.Kill these animals on the spot and their families.

I was in Tampico a few years back. Stayed there for three months. It was such an incredible city to be in. Nice people, great beach, great bars, and just beautiful. Now... I just can't believe these fucking animals would do this to their own country. To their own people. The Mexican gov't needs to do something fast, or the country is going to crumble... economically, physically, and emotionally.